Falling In Reverse

Chapter 2: Same, yet not the same

"So," Naruto dragged the mesh shirt over his head, "we get the universe where my dad died after sealing you inside me, and the one where he didn't, but somehow ended up as a missing-nin?"

"Or where you had never been born, or you were stillborn. Maybe there was no attack on your birthday at all, or maybe I am the captive of another ninja village and you contain a completely different Bijuu. The possibilities are endless."

The teen slipped on his black and burnt-orange colored jacket and reached for his forehead protector that was dropped on the pile of his dirty clothes, frowning at the stained cloth. "And we fell into one of those alternate universes."

That was more a statement than a question, but Kurama confirmed it nonetheless, "If my theory is correct, yes." He waited patiently while the teen processed the information, already ready for his next question.

"How do we go back?"

"We cannot."

"What?! Why?"

"There were so many things happening on the battlefield, so much chakra thrown around, it is quite impossible to determine what exactly caused the rupture." The great fox held the defiant glare of his Jinchuuriki. "The cause was probably everything put together," he said. "Do you know how to recreate that particular moment? The Juubi's bijuudama, Nidaime's water shield, a few Mangekyou, Rinnegan, my chakr–"

"Okay, okay! I got it!" the young ninja admitted in a hurry. His shoulders dropped in defeat as his sad gaze wandered to stare at the calm surface of the lake.

"Even if we could go back, do you really want to?" Kurama asked softly. "You should realize that there is nothing and no one to return to now."

"Yeah..." the blond whispered back.

A silence stretched on the peaceful lake's shore, the Kyuubi allowing the boy to mourn. It was the quiet voice of the clone that eventually broke it, "Boss, food is ready."

Naruto expelled all the air from his lungs in one long exhalation, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. "Alright," he slapped his cheeks with his palms, taking a deep breath. "What now?" he asked as he took a seat on the ground next to the fire. He passed the forehead protector to his clone and motioned to the lake.

Kurama hummed thoughtfully. "We need to familiarize ourselves with this new world. So, reconnaissance," he stated, and the teen nodded in agreement with his teeth already sunken into the cooked rabbit. "You should send a clone to each of the hidden villages to gather information of what is happening there." The Jinchuuriki mumbled something along the line of 'Good thinking.'"In the meantime, we should speak with locals."

Naruto's lips twitched down into a small frown as he placed the stick with a half-eaten carcass of the rabbit back on fire. "You mean dad and Kakashi? ...And the Uchiha?" Something dark passed through his eyes. "I guess I can't call that man my father anymore."

"It depends on how you look at it."

The teen's eyes immediately snapped up. "Huh?"

"The Old Man also told us that while it is possible to cross between these parallel universes – which we are experiencing right now – there is one rule that cannot be bent even by godly entities," the Kyuubi began as he sat up and now stared down at the young blond intently. "Identical substances from two different planes of reality cannot exist in the same universe."

Naruto blinked at him, his mind drawing a blank.

Kurama sighed. "It means that Minato from our world and this Minato share the same essence," he explained. "Thus while Minato of this world is not the one who has given you your life, he still may be considered your father."

"That's..." Naruto trailed off, a deep scowl on his face. "That's slightly confusing."

The Kyuubi chuckled. 'Slightly' was clearly an understatement. "Indeed," he agreed with a grin before becoming serious again. "It also means that you and I hadn't existed in this world until we fell into it. You are either dead or never have been born. And I..." he paused. "There might be no Bijuu to begin with."

"Or you got assimilated into the Juubi," the blond offered.

Kurama's tails shifted, betraying the fox's discomfort. "That... is a possibility."

"Well," Naruto stood up and dusted his pants. "We go find da– those guys and ask them about it."

"Do not forget that there is a chance that they actually are what their forehead protectors symbolize."

The Jinchuuriki rubbed his face tiredly as he said in a subdued voice, "Let's hope not." Then he dispersed the clones on the lookout from afar and created four more to have six in total.

Five of them were sent to the major ninja villages – Konoha, Suna, Kiri, Iwa, and Kumo – for reconnaissance, and the last one was to follow the group until they came upon some kind of known marker or a village to identify where exactly in the Fire Country they were located and then dispel, sending that information back to the original.

"I wonder if I can access Sage mode without Toads summoning contract," Naruto thought loudly after his copies left, tying washed and dried out forehead protector around his head. "It would be easier to find them."

"Natural energy remains all around us, regardless your contractor status," Kurama pointed out lazily. "It should manifest differently however." Suddenly he yawned, stretching his limbs. "I'm returning to the seal."

"Sure," the Jinchuuriki replied off-handedly, already getting comfortable in a meditative position and closing his eyes. There was a loud popping sound, created by a release of the Kyuubi's clone, and then – silence. Slowly, it got filled with the sounds of nature: birds chirping, leaves rustling, sloshing of water, the occasional splash of a fish, buzzing of insects.

Naruto opened his eyes, feeling calm and refreshed. He had no trouble collecting the natural energy for the Sage mode and he felt no noticeable difference in its feeling. He stood up and walked to look at his reflection on the surface of the lake.

"Huh," Naruto grunted, taking in his appearance. Golden irises, but instead of horizontal toad-like pupils, they had slitted ones, just like under the influence of the Kyuubi's chakra. The markings around his eyes were now deep dark red, almost black, and had sharper angles. "Why does it remind me of the markings around your eyes?"

Kurama hummed. "Without the blood contract, it takes form after the strongest aspect of the user's chakra. For the Shodai, it was his bloodline limit. For you, it is my chakra weaved into yours."

Naruto stared at himself for another few seconds, then looked up. "Well, it works and doesn't feel any different."

"Told you so."

The teen rolled his eyes. "Alright, let's start from the place where we met yesterday," he said and leaped into the tree.

xxx

A few hours later, right after his clone dispelled, notifying Naruto about their position – the southeast of the Fire Country – he found a trace of Minato's team. It took almost half a day longer to finally detect one of their chakra signatures. Naruto had no problem recognizing Kakashi's presence: the latter was almost identical to his sensei's with only a few differences.

The teen squished the rising feeling of longing, focusing on here and now. And when he did, he noticed an irregular fluctuation in Kakashi's chakra as if he was gravely injured, causing him unconsciously quicken his pace. When his heightened senses picked up an entity following his sensei's counterpart, his blood ran cold.

A vicious, hateful growl echoed throughout his mind, the Kyuubi's bloodlust instantaneously spiraling over the roof, threatening to burst from inside of the seal on his Jinchuuriki's stomach.

Naruto lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing the prolonged canines, and his yellow eyes of the Sage bled into the deep glowing crimson, burning with barely contained rage. "It's them..." he seethed. The golden flames of the Kyuubi's chakra engulfed his body, and he blurred out of sight.